Thursday, January 8, 2015

Misery Loves Company (Miss Misery #3) by Tracey Martin

Jess decided she was going to have nothing to do with the
Gryphons any more, regardless of their blackmail, not after what she learned
about her childhood

That’s until her best friend Steph’s cousin is turned
into a ghoul by the Goblin who owns his soul. How can she refuse to be involved
in the investigation and turn her back on her friend?

Of course, going back to the Gryphons isn’t helping her
rocky relationship with her satyr boyfriend, Lucen, who wants her to accept the
multiple sex partners that are necessary for satyrs. And that’s before she
tackles her own conflicted feelings about her own Pred heritage.

Looming over all of this, several prophecies are aligning
– and the end of the world may be nigh.

This book is moving the story to a whole new level – in some
ways it’s a transition book; but usually that would mean a weaker novel but
that’s far from the case here. It feels like Jess has reached the end of her
journey of self-discovery and all the conflict there and it has been done
excellently. I’ve loved every step of that.

On top of that we have an introduction of the next stage
of the meta-plot – the ominous prophecies we’ve been hearing for a while. We
can see this looming, it has been introduced and the series has some excellent
deduction

And, among that, we have a decent mystery that is both personal to Jess and relevant
to the meta-plot but still stands up sufficiently on its own to make sure the
book isn’t all about setting up the next book. We have an investigation, a
clear book-specific story arc as well.

All three of these elements are really well balanced, really well paced and
work extremely well together – it made the book fun to read while still serving
up plenty of hooks for the fourth book.

On top of all this, as I said in the previous books, the
world building of this series – the Preds and their feeding on different
emotions, their forming of circles of addicts – is really original. I love
reading something so very different from everything else I’ve read

The cornerstone of this book is Jess’s identity issues
and they’re complex and really well done, especially how it relates to the
greater world building. Jess was raised as a human, raised, like most people,
to hate and fear Preds and even aspired to join the Gryphons, a kind of magical
police force that exists to control and, at one time, war against the Pred
races. But she has learned that, no, she isn’t cursed, she’s a pred. She’s a kind
of satyr. And she’s a satyr because a segment of the Gryphons experimented on
her and others while they were children – which has definitely flipped the
script she’d always lived by as to who the good and bad guys are.

But it’s not just simplistically flipping the story over.
After all, the Preds ARE predatory, by definition they’re predatory, they do
prey on people, they do addict people, they do use people and a lot of people
suffer because of their supernatural hunger. But nor are they entirely
monstrous as we see their society does have rules (albeit not always closely
adhered to) and many Preds do their best to cause minimal damage while feeding
hungers they cannot avoid (at the same time, the choice to become a Pred is
generally that – a choice – so even one who is very moral and kind with their addicts
can’t be considered completely free from blame). And, of course, Jess knows
several Preds who seem to be good people – on top of that it’s rightly pointed
out to her that Jess is a Pred who avoids many of the downsides of being a Pred
since she isn’t physically identifiable as one (satyrs have horns) and she
doesn’t need addicts; in some ways judgement from her comes from a position of
great advantage compared to her fellows. And flipping back to the Gryphons, we’re
equally clear that they’re not all brutal fanatics and they do have an
important role to play in maintaining order and protecting people and she isn’t
able to write off the organisation because of the inexcusable actions of one.

Throw into this we have some excellent personal elements for Jess – her friend
Steph’s condemnation of Preds and need for Jess to work with the Gryphons is
one element of very personal pressure. And we have her relationship with Lucen
pulling the other way which also brings up Jess’s own human upbringing and how
her sexual morality clashes so much with the necessary open relationships that
satyr powers requires. She clings to standards of monogamy that Lucen simply
cannot meet which is very difficult to reconcile.

All of this comes together in an excellent conclusion I
won’t spoil, but it draws on all of her conflict and torn identity together and
makes it an asset for the future series and leaves Jess in a much stronger
position and much more self-confident with herself. It’s a very satisfactory
conclusion to this whole conflict

There are a couple of shaky elements in this book – firstly,
Jess is being pushed over and over to sleep with other men. Yes, this is satyr
culture and she needs to realise that Lucen cannot be monogamous – but I can’t
see the solution being pushing Jess to have sex she isn’t comfortable with.
Now, her sitting down and challenging whether the morality she has assumed is
valid to her or right etc – but there’s a difference between that questioning
and feeling pressured to have sex with a random guy. At least her actually having sex with other men is left to her making the first move and there is absolutely no shaming of her for it.

There was also a little element of comparison between
Steph being a trans woman and Jess being a satyr. There were lots of small
hints but on the flip side when a direct comparison was actually made, the book
is also quick to shut it down and make it clear it isn’t right to compare being
trans to being a supernatural creature that frequently preys on humans. So it
does subvert it very overtly – but only after numerous not-very-subtle parallels.

But Steph is generally a great character – she has a
stable and happy family. She’s skilled, caring, loyal and competent. She seems
to be lacking in any real stereotypes that dog the very very very few trans
characters out there. Her family are intolerant and transphobic, and they’re
clearly labelled as extremely out of line and blatantly bigoted and that Steph
is a much better person than them. I like Steph, she and Jess have a great
relationship and in previous books she has been involved in the plot and I hope
she’ll continue to do so.

All satyrs are presented as bisexual but for most of the
series (which isn’t ideal because it does link bisexuality with predatory
sexuality) we haven’t seen much of this – but in this book we had more of
Angelia who is bisexual and focuses on female partners. She’s also presented as
kind and a growing good friend to Jess – she’s also blind adding a decent and
sexual disabled character to the cast which is quite rare to see. I like her
and hope she continues to be a regular inclusion

In terms of POC we have Olivia head of the Gryphons and Dezzi head of the
satyrs. Both are repeatedly shown to be very very good at their jobs, extremely
competent, caring, compassionate, wise and generally superlative. I like them a
lot and hope both will have bigger roles in the future (there is a minor edge
of promotion
to obscurity here).

This book is a turning point for the series – Jess and
the various organisations she’s part of are all embarking in a new direction,
many of her older issues have been addressed and nicely resolved rather than
being dragged on: the series has had three books of excellent introduction and
character establishment and brilliant world building - and now the meta plot is landing